Betting the Scot (The Highlanders of Balforss)

by Trethewey, Jennifer

  Shit. O’Malley. Though Jack had only a vague recollection of his exchange with O’Malley’s solicitor—it had been late at night, he’d had much to drink, and he’d lost quite a bit of money at cards—this man appeared nothing like the gentleman described. Sean O’Malley looked more like a highwayman than a herring merchant.

  Mr. Boyle struck him on the side of his head. “Answer the man.”

  Jack rubbed at the searing pain in his right ear. “She’s—” He coughed and made a motion indicating he was choking to death.

  O’Malley signaled Mr. Boyle to release Jack’s collar. When he did, Jack fell forward on all fours. Mr. Boyle and the man with the musket laughed.

  He moved his tongue around the inside of his cotton-lined mouth, seeking a drop of saliva with which to lie. “She’s run off with three Scotsmen.”

  “Is that what you say?” O’Malley’s tone implied he didn’t believe him. “And who might these Scotsmen be?”

  He got to his feet and brushed himself off. How dare the man not believe his lie? “They were Sinclairs.”

  This time all three laughed uproariously. The audacity. If Jack were not at such a financial disadvantage, if he were at home among his equals, instead of here in this disreputable country, he’d have these men placed in irons with a snap of his fingers.

  O’Malley wiped his eyes and recovered himself. “Ya don’t even know where ya are, do ya? This is Sinclair land, fool. Half the people living in this part of Scotland bear the name Sinclair.”

  “They were Sinclair of…of…of—” Jack searched his foggy mind. What had the red one said? I’m Alex Sinclair of—damn. “One was named Alex Sinclair.”

  “I’ll ask ya to shut your filthy hole and quit your lyin’. The lass inside told us ya lost the woman in a game of cards, and I’m not about to chase all over the countryside after those billy boys. I’ll settle for a return of my money.”

  Jack cursed under his breath. He’d wring the barmaid’s skinny neck the next chance he got, the slattern. But first, he would deal with his most immediate threat, O’Malley. Best to stall for time. Get the man in a better mood, and maybe he could find his way out of this.

  “Perhaps you’d like to join me inside, and we can discuss our business over breakfast.”

  “It’s afternoon, Pendarvis.” O’Malley gave him a derogatory shake of the head.

  Insufferable. The man had no right to treat a gentleman of his standing with contempt. He chastised himself for his own poor judgment. Absolute foolishness on his part for dealing with an Irishman. Everyone knew the Irish lied and cheated whenever possible.

  “Luncheon then. They serve a delicious lamb stew.”

  “If you don’t have the woman, and you don’t have the five quid I advanced ya, I’ll take you instead. I lost a member of my crew to typhoid last month. I need a new hand.” O’Malley signaled Boyle. “Take him. Jiggity-jig. Make it quick.”

  Jesus. He’d rather go to debtors’ prison than spend a lifetime pressed into service aboard a ship. Before Boyle could grab him by the collar again, he shouted, “Wait. I have the money. I have it hidden in my room.”

  O’Malley signaled his man to stop and said with complete civility, “Mr. Boyle, accompany Mr. Pendarvis above stairs and retrieve my five quid.”

  Boyle followed Jack up the stairs so closely he felt the man’s hot breath on the back of his neck. In less than a minute, he would discover his deception. Jack’s mind raced through ways to escape his predicament. He had nothing with which to bribe the man, and there was little chance he could overtake or outrun him. He could risk jumping out the nearest window, but those long, muscled arms would catch him before he got the damn thing open.

  “Just in here,” Jack said, opening his bedchamber door.

  A light fragrance lingered. It was that of his sister. For an instant, he regretted having lost her. Shame at his behavior last night threatened to get the better of him. Just as quickly, rage fired his determination to escape this bloody mess, find his sister, and punish her for deserting him. It was her fault he was in this position.

  Jack glanced around the room. “Ah. Yes. I’ve hidden the money behind a loose brick.”

  Boyle grunted an acknowledgment.

  Jack reached into the fireplace and fumbled around up inside the flue, pretending to search while Boyle watched him, dull-eyed. “It’s here. Somewhere. Ah. The damn thing is stuck.” He pointed to his bag lying on the floor behind Boyle. “Hand me that dumfuzzle.”

  Boyle cocked his head. “Eh?”

  “The dumfuzzle,” Jack said, encouraged by the man’s confusion. “The dumfuzzle,” he repeated, still pretending to fumble with the brick inside the chimney.

  Boyle turned to look in the direction in which Jack pointed. “Where?”

  “Right there. The silver thing—no, not there. Inside the bag.”

  When Boyle stooped to search the bag, Jack snatched up the fireplace iron with two hands and brought it down on the man’s bald head. The hooked point of the poker sank into his polished skull with a wet squelch and stuck. Boyle dropped face-first into Jack’s traveling bag, blood soaking the garments inside.

  From outside below the window, O’Malley called up, “Jiggity-jig, Mr. Pendarvis. Jiggity-jig.”

  …

  The black talons of fear that had dug deep into Caya’s flesh that morning relaxed their grip. Although not at ease, she stopped shaking, and the knot in her stomach loosened. The Scot who won her was not a savage. He seemed to be an honorable man. He also wanted her, a fact that warmed her shoulders and neck, a not altogether unpleasant sensation.

  The men in her village used to tell tales about the barbarians to the north. Whenever anyone spoke of Highlanders they had referred to them as uneducated savages who worshipped pagan gods and despoiled women. But Mr. Sinclair—all the Sinclair men—had demonstrated the good manners expected of civilized men, even if their clothing fell short of what befitted gentlemen. Caya had, on occasion, seen rude paintings depicting Highlanders, bare-legged, kilted men chasing down deer with bow and arrow. She glanced at Mr. Sinclair’s long legs hidden inside gray trousers. Did he chase deer—with bare legs?

  She shooed away the wicked notion of Mr. Sinclair wearing a kilt, more fodder for her box of guilty imaginings. Dark clouds on the western horizon forewarned an evening storm, but for now, the sky above was crisp and clear. She took a moment to breathe in the Scottish countryside, green and fragrant. She’d been terrified when she and Jack arrived in Scotland yesterday. Wick Harbour had been so crowded, and everyone a stranger. But out here in the country, the familiar-looking landscape calmed her—a vast expanse of rolling pastures, barley fields, and patches of forest not unlike Cornwall. Even the cliff-lined coasts of Wick reminded her of her home in Penzance. They seemed to be traveling away from the sea, though. How far away? The thought unsettled her. The sea had always been as much a part of her life as the sun and the moon.

  “What’s that over there?” She pointed north toward what looked like a large body of water.

  “Loch Watten. We’ll be passing through Watten soon. Are you hungry?”

  “Famished, actually.” Aside from the few berries she’d eaten, she hadn’t breakfasted.

  “There’s a woman there that sells meat pies almost as good as my sister’s.”

  Mr. Sinclair was what most women would call handsome. His rough-hewn features, so angular and masculine, appealed to her. He had a lean, attractive profile with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. It looked as though his nose may have been broken once or twice. Like most Scotsmen she’d seen thus far, he wore his hair long, tied back with a strip of rawhide. A few gleaming black curls escaped and floated around his forehead in the breeze. She rather liked his tall, lank physique. He had warm hands, too. She had felt their heat when he lifted her into the wagon.

  “I saw you weeping earlier. Is it your brother?” he asked. “Are you sorry to leave him?”

  His mention of Jack made her stomach churn. No poin
t trying to hide what he already knew to be true. Her brother was a wastrel.

  “The tears were for me.” She owed Mr. Sinclair nothing. He’d implied as much. But she wanted to make clear to him she didn’t cry for Jack. “I couldn’t save him, you see. Jack had so much promise when he was younger. When the drink got hold of him, I tried to help. It was like watching someone drown. You swim into the deep waters to save them, but each time you reach out they grab at you and take you down until you’re exhausted. You must make the choice: drown with them, or save yourself.” She thought, but did not say, I chose to save myself.

  “I’ll remember that, should I ever find myself in deep water.”

  How odd. A man so large and capable as Mr. Sinclair not knowing how to swim. “Are you afraid of drowning?”

  “It’s no’ the drowning I fear.” He made an impish grin. “I’m afraid of falling in.”

  She appreciated his attempt to lighten her mood with his humor, but found it too difficult to laugh.

  After a quiet moment, he said, “Dinnae berate yourself. I ken you did everything a loving sister could do.” Mr. Sinclair fidgeted. She barely heard what he said next. “If you’re weary, you can lean on me until your strength returns.” His offer was intimate. Far too intimate. He must have known because pink patches appeared on his cheeks. Again, he was speaking directly to her deepest desire, to have someone large and strong to rely on. Did he know? Could he tell by looking at her how much he affected her?

  “What are you?” she asked. “I mean, what do you do?”

  “I was a soldier once. Now I make uisge-beatha, the water of life.” Mr. Sinclair’s eyebrows popped up and down. “Whisky.” His voice had turned husky, and he seemed very pleased with himself.

  “Whisky is a spirit?”

  “Aye.”

  “You make it for the purpose of drinking?”

  “Aye. I built a distillery.”

  A soldier. A man of violence who made spirits. She disapproved of both professions. The idea of a distillery concerned her, too. Strong drink had contributed to Jack’s demise. She disapproved of drinking spirits and gambling. Mr. Sinclair and his friends were guilty of both. Had she left one bad situation only to step into another?

  A more horrifying thing occurred to her, and her breath hitched. “Are you a Catholic?” she blurted, her black opinion of the faith undisguised.

  Mr. Sinclair glared at her with his dark eyebrows buckled together. “I am not.”

  She’d offended him.

  He turned his eyes back to the road. “I’m not a bloody papist,” he muttered, then shot a look back at her. “And before ye ask, I’m no’ a heathen, either.” Mr. Sinclair focused on the road ahead again.

  “Lutheran?” she asked, trying to sound less accusatory.

  “Anglican,” he corrected. “Episcopal Church of Scotland.”

  “Oh,” Caya breathed out. “Good. That’s good.”

  Mr. Sinclair gave her a sidelong glance. The corner of his mouth twitched. Was he laughing at her? “I suppose you and God are on good terms, then,” he said.

  “Do you mock me, sir?”

  He smiled broadly. “Nae, lass. I can see he has favored you.”

  “And God does not favor you?”

  “Let’s just say, we dinnae often agree.”

  He was teasing her again, and she almost asked him to explain what he meant by not agreeing with the Lord, when someone called out. She spotted the other men up ahead. The two sat side by side on a stone fence, eating while their horses grazed on the opposite side of the road. Apparently, they had already visited the woman who sold meat pies.

  “Are they your brothers?”

  “Nae. Cousins.”

  When Mr. Sinclair pulled the wagon to a stop, the huge one with the beard walked to her side and handed up a tied cloth package. “Mrs. Gunn’s meat pies.”

  “Thank you.” Caya opened the warm bundle. Two standing short-crust pies, each about the size of her fist. She held the pies out to her wagon companion. He chose one and took a big bite.

  “Mmm-mm.” Mr. Sinclair talked around the food in his mouth. “Good. Pork pie. Try it.”

  She pinched off a piece of her crust and nibbled. Tasty, but not as light as the pastry she made. She forbore telling him so. Pride was a sin.

  He withdrew a small black knife from his boot, wiped it on his sleeve, and handed it to her hilt-first. His eating knife, no doubt. Yet again, the man anticipated her needs.

  “Thank you, Mr. Sinclair.”

  “We’re not so formal in the Highlands. When we get to Balforss, the servants will call you ‘miss.’ Everyone else will want to call you Caya.”

  “I understand.”

  “Will you call me Declan?”

  She hadn’t addressed a member of the opposite sex outside her family by his Christian name since she was a child. Where she came from, in public, even wives referred to their husbands by their surnames. Mr. Sinclair’s request shocked her, but if he was the man she would marry, she might as well get used to using his Christian name.

  “If you like…Declan.” Saying his name seemed too familiar, particularly when Mr. Sinclair—Declan—looked so very pleased upon hearing her say it. He even stared at her lips.

  He pointed to the other two. “The big one is Magnus. The ugly one is Alex.”

  She suppressed a smile. The red-haired man was the exact opposite of ugly, and Mr. Sincl—Declan knew it. But, no. She couldn’t bring herself to call his cousins by their first names. That would be far too—

  “Caya. It’s a pretty name.”

  She flushed. He liked her name. He even spoke her name as if it was pretty. Flattery. Yes. Pure flattery. She would not be taken in by such frivolous things. Vanity was no less a sin than pride.

  “Sorry.” Declan looked at her as if to gauge whether it was safe to tell her something. He glanced down when he spoke. “I’m no’ so good with talking to pretty women.” Caya stopped breathing and went very still. She sensed this moment was important. He had shared something of great value, something more precious than a mere compliment. He had revealed his uncertainty.

  He lifted his eyes and met hers. It took courage to look at her after what he’d just admitted. Whatever Declan Sinclair was, he was not a coward. He waited for her to acknowledge his gift, to say something, anything.

  “I think you’re doing fine,” she said.

  He smiled at her again. That pleasing sweet, dimpled smile. He held her gaze a few seconds longer than was acceptable between strangers before they both looked away. He popped the last bite of his meat pie into his mouth and snapped the reins.

  The wagon jounced and joggled down the road. She continued to eat Mrs. Gunn’s meat pie. Minced pork and onion baked in a short crust. Good, but a shingle would taste good she was so hungry. She was tempted again to mention that her Cornish pasties were better, but she would wait until she had an opportunity to demonstrate her skill. Then she’d allow Declan to judge the difference for himself.

  Another hour passed. They spoke very little. Occasionally, Declan would ask if she would like to stop and rest. She declined each time. She tried to calm her mind, not think about the past, about Jack’s betrayal, about her father’s farm and all their belongings auctioned off to strangers, about the life she might have had if her childhood sweetheart hadn’t died. She didn’t want to ponder the future, either. Everything seemed so uncertain.

  Instead, she concentrated on the horizon. Each mile they covered carried her farther from her old life and closer to her new beginning. The distance between Wick and Balforss seemed like a kind of limbo. A space where her life remained suspended, her future placed in abeyance, her body numb to pain or pleasure.

  Late in the afternoon, they crested a hill, and Declan pulled the wagon to a stop. He pointed to a house nestled within a dense stand of trees at the bend in the river about a mile and a half away.

  “Balforss,” he said.

  The air around her changed. A salty breeze
swept over her. The sea was close. She inhaled the briny scent and held it in, let it permeate her body, acclimating to her new world from the inside out. “It’s magnificent,” she said, and meant it.

  “My distillery is hidden on the other side of the river. And my old cottage lies farther on, closer to the sea. My sister Margaret and her husband Hamish live there now. It’s called Cleaver Cottage.” He pointed to a hill another two miles or more east of Balforss. “And way to the right, just over that brae is our house, Taldale Farm.”

  The way he said “Taldale Farm” with such pride made her turn and look at him. His gaze, like a fist, shot through her chest, grabbed her heart, and squeezed hard. This man, this Highlander, this Scot, was now her life. She felt herself fall from limbo into the present—the all too immediate present. The man next to her, the home before her, the countryside all around her, became vibrant with color.

  The talons of fear tightened again. This all seemed awfully quick, awfully easy, the way she’d fallen into this matrimonial arrangement. Had she cheated somehow? Broken rules? Would she be made to pay for abandoning her brother and running off with a stranger whose dark brown eyes had invaded her thoughts last night in a sinfully personal way?

  Too late. Too late to change her mind. This was real. This was happening to her. This was her choice.

  …

  As the dray clattered down the last two miles of road toward Balforss, Declan inhaled the spring air and let his shoulder muscles relax. True, they’d experienced a false start, a big misunderstanding, but he’d cleared things up for Caya. They were to be married. He reminded himself that he’d had three years to get used to the idea. This was all new to the lass. It might take time, but eventually she’d come to see what Declan already knew to be true—they were meant to be together. His dreams told him so.

  The meat pie helped improve his mood. He always felt better with a full belly. He stole a sideways glance at Caya. The meat pie must have altered her disposition, too. She seemed more at ease than before. Her brow had smoothed—no trace of the earlier creases. He took in her pretty profile, the delicate eyebrows arched over sky-blue eyes fringed with blonde, almost white lashes. And that dusting of freckles across the bridge of her wee nose. His heart squeezed whenever he looked at them. How very lucky to have such a bonnie bride.